This is to acknowledge your letter [1] of the 4th November which
was primarily about New Guinea.

You will doubtless have seen my telegram No. 1110 [2] of the 10th
November which gave in paragraph 7 a very brief report of State
Department views on this matter. This was sent before receiving
your letter. After receiving your letter I took the opportunity
while talking to Lacy of the Indonesian Desk to verify the fact
that the United States Embassy in Canberra had reported
discussions which the Department had with it on this subject.

Having ascertained that the Embassy had fully reported the
discussions I sought an amplification of State Department views.

Lacy said that he could not give the official United States
position but was of the opinion that the Department favoured Dutch
trusteeship for New Guinea. He was aware of the United Kingdom
views and suggested that the best course of action might be for
Australia, in view of its close association with both the United
Kingdom and the Indonesian Governments, to take the initiative in
persuading both of these Governments to accept the view that Dutch
trusteeship was the best compromise solution. Such a course of
action might well have to be taken very slowly and carefully and
possibly after sounding out the views of other interested
governments, e.g., India, Burma, Siam, Philippines, New Zealand,
etc. This suggestion was put forward informally but Lacy mentioned
that if we wished to obtain a more formal statement of United
States views we might see fit to seek them by means of a note to
the State Department.

Lacy mentioned in passing that he thought that India was not
inflexibly opposed to Dutch trusteeship and he thought that our
High Commissioner [3] in New Delhi might have some success in this
matter with Bajpai.